Mountain Models' Smoothe -- RC Electric Plane

Ah, my favorite plane so far! This is a proper plane, with full 4 channel control, geared brushless electric motor, lightweight, strong, and aerobatic!

A quick pre-flight check to see if the ailerons, rudder etc looked about straight would save lots of hassle later

As this was my first aileron plane, I had a few mishaps along the way before it established itself as a favorite. Basically, it is hard to fly model planes. It looks easy, but it is hard, especially at first. I got this plane when I got bored of the Tipsy, and spent about 2 weeks building it from an incredibly accurate kit. I'd never before assembled anything where the pieces actually fit together so perfectly. It ended up not looking too bad, despite being covered in coloured sticky tape. The wing is foam, with a very sturdy reinforced plywood spar. All the rest is balsa and ply.

My first few flights were pretty hair-raising, because I hadn't yet worked out that a quick pre-flight check to see if the ailerons, rudder etc looked about straight would save lots of hassle later. I got a bit annoyed with the plane, and after a nasty crash, gave it up for a while. During this time, I built the AND_NOW, and through flying that I developed the skill needed to pilot the SmoothE successfully.

I returned to the SmoothE, and in contrast to the bendy depron AND_NOW, the SmoothE is... well... Smooth! It goes where you point it, glides amazingly well, and handles wind reasonably. I had a lot of fun with it on its standard GWS 350C gearbox and brushed motor, running on 2 Lipo cells, but I wanted more power, more speed, vertical take-offs, etc...

So, I upgraded it to a brushless geared motor and 3 cells. Now, that's more like it! You can do some fun stuff, like take off then pull back into vertical flight. The prop somehow resonates in the cowling area giving a sinister buzzing noise at high speed, which I really like. It can now do great aerobatics (by my standards).

Smoothe technical details:

See all my RC planes